I'm Engaged!!!

WOW! For quite a long time, I never thought this day would come. The wait was worth it though, as I'm now engaged to the most wonderful man in the world. When HBFB (whose name has now been changed to HFB) and I first met in college, I knew I wanted to marry him. I even called my sister and told her that I met the man I was going to marry. Obviously the timing wasn't right for us then, but it is now! I have a feeling all things wedding will take over my blog for the next year or so, and what better way to share it with everyone, as well as keep a record for myself.

Today, we'll start with the story of the proposal.

Saturday morning (April 10), Ben wanted to go to Forest Park (which is pretty standard weekend activity for us). My parents were in STL watching my nephew while my sister and brother-in-law looked for houses, so we were going to meet my parents for lunch after our trip to the park. When we got to the park, we walked towards Art Hill (our fave place). We knew it was under construction because we had been there the week before, but Ben kept making me look at the hill and was asking if I thought it was done yet. Later I found out that we were walking past my parents' car and that was his attempt to distract me. When we got down to Emerson Basin (the pretty fountains in front of the art museum), he started saying really sweet things. All of the sudden, he got down on one knee and pulled out the ring. He said a lot more and asked me to marry him. There were a few people standing near by and they started clapping and cheering. He had the ring in the box for what seemed like 20 minutes, but it was probably more like 20 seconds, and I couldn't wait any longer, so I took it out and put it on my finger : ) When we were done hugging and kissing and crying, he pointed across the fountains where I could see people far away waving, and it was our parents. He had arranged with his parents and mine to meet us there. They got to watch everything, but we still had our privacy. His mom brought her camera and was able to take pictures while he was down on one knee! We ran over to them, took more pictures, and then all went to lunch at the Boat House at Forest Park. It was such a wonderful day, I couldn't have asked for anything more perfect!

We are looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together, and right now we're really excited to plan our big day!!!